29 Comments
Mar 10, 2022Liked by Bernard Hickey

Bernard, what would the increase in the cost of putting a roof over your head be if you only rented from the age of 18 until you were at the average life expectancy age? As opposed to buying a house and all of the costs associated with that. It must be in the millions.

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Mar 10, 2022Liked by Bernard Hickey

Looking forward to the Hoon Bernard, always a great korero to wind down from the work week.

Have to say I'm somewhat amazed (and perhaps even a little frightened) that a political party that can barely organize themselves are polling as the best party to run the country.

Any thoughts on the TOP tax alert from Raf this morning?

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Mar 10, 2022Liked by Bernard Hickey

"I still don’t understand why employers in Wellington and Auckland in particular are not screaming from the rooftops for more affordable housing": Bernard, is a plausible answer to this question that employers tend to be property owners who benefit more from high rents, dollar for dollar, than they suffer from scarcity of employees?

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Mar 10, 2022Liked by Bernard Hickey

I'm not qualified to assess Keith Woodford's estimate of the value of agribusiness to the A-NZ economy, even if he showed his working, which I notice he doesn't; but I've met his argument for a split-gas approach before, and it always seems to translate to "don't make us stop emitting methane, we can't afford to; also, don't charge us for emitting methane, we can't afford it; also, don't worry that methane is many times more powerful than CO2 as a warming agent, it doesn't last as long in the atmosphere so we're fine! Really! Also technology will solve cow emissions soon! Steady as she goes, don't rock that boat". It's a lot to encode in three little words. When you read "split-gas approach", be aware that money is talking.

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Mar 10, 2022Liked by Bernard Hickey

Wonder if you saw the Sally Army presser on The Commerce lots report on Supermarkets and the suggestion that allowing more stores to sell alcohol would make things better. Which is pretty horrible!

Salvation army...

https://www.salvationarmy.org.nz/news/salvation-army-concerned-about-impact-high-groceries-prices-and-wider-availability-alcohol-most 🔥🔥🔥

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Mar 10, 2022Liked by Bernard Hickey

Interesting that Paul Majurey acted for Marina Developers (and against mana whenua) in the Kennedy Point Boat Harbour Ltd case in the environment court. Clearly marina developments in the Gulf are pretty dicey in terms of destroying the bio diversity in the moana. Most all of the Waiheke Community being against the taking over of the commons by a private company (7.2 hectares given by AC to the company for nix.

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Gary Dyall

It is interesting to see the poll ratings between Luxon and Adern. As the P.M. Adern hasn’t had an easy ride especially when you look at events such as White Island, the Islam massacre,COVID and the riots at Parliament. Overall, I think she’s done pretty well, but her Government didn’t do too well on some of Labour’s election promises such as social policies. However, it would be interesting to see how Luxon reacts when he has the blow torch on the belly on National’s election promises and the equivalent of similar events experienced by the current Government.

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Mar 11, 2022·edited Mar 11, 2022Liked by Bernard Hickey

Seems that these really are just tweaks only. My take is that lenders may well still opt to conduct in-depth, evidenced due diligence on borrowers since it's their hide on the line if, for example, a borrower inadvertently misrepresents their income/outgoings. I don't see this 'turning on the taps' much at all. It's the LVRs and interest rates that really drive things

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